Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Six years ago our community and City Council stood up for Shollenberger Park and rejected the Dutra asphalt factory proposal in favor of the health and quality of life in Petaluma. We spoke at the Board of Supervisors hearings, we wrote letters and emails, and thousands signed petitions. We spoke out against allowing a private business, Dutra Materials, to ruin our most popular park and valuable wetlands. We said "NO" to Dutra's asphalt factory towers and trucks blighting our Gateway and the banks of our River.

Three of our our elected Supervisors (Carrillo, Kelley, and Kerns) failed to properly interpret and enforce our County General Plan. These three chose instead to find loopholes like the fairytale of "river dependency" to allow the rezoning of Dutra's parcels to Light industrial. Two Supervisors, Shirlee Zane and Valerie Brown spoke eloquently in favor of protecting public health from the impacts of asphalt manufacture deadly by products like heavy metals and diesel exhaust. Considering the proximity of the proposed factory to public open space used for recreation, 26 schools, and hundreds of new subdivision homes, we applauded Supervisors Zane's and Brown's NO votes on Dutra.

We will continue to stand up and fight to protect Shollenberger Park, despite court decisions based on the defendants' (The County of Sonoma) briefs relying on the parsing of words and legal loopholes, and not on the real interests of the people who elected them.We will fight on to SAVE SHOLLENBERGER.

The City of Petaluma and the coalition of plaintiffs filed March 14, 2014 a Petition for Rehearing of three issues ruled upon by the State Court of Appeal on March 7, 2014. (Decision attached)

The City of Petaluma and our Community have fought long and hard to preserve and protect our most popular park, our wetlands, our health, and our Gateway. These are keys to Petaluma’s future prosperity and enjoyment of this place. We will continue to make our case for the rejection of the Dutra Asphalt factory at the proposed location and defend our community against degradation by Dutra’s project.

California law provides a legal path for rehearing of issues at the Court of Appeal by appellants who strongly believe the panel of judges significantly erred in their ruling.

The plaintiffs are requesting that the Court of Appeal reconsider and correct their decisions on three issues:

1. The Court ruled that there is no remedy available for the County’s violation of the Brown Act, when the Board of Supervisors prohibited public testimony at the Dec. 14, 2010 final hearing during which the County approved the Dutra project, despite releasing hundreds of pages of new project information that very morning.

The Brown Act protects the core democratic principle that the public should be allowed to confront and petition their elected officials through public comment at public hearings. By claiming that there is no specific penalty for violating a specific provision of the Brown Act (Sec. 54954.3), the court has left the public with “a right without a remedy.”

We are asking the Court to deem the Board’s project approval actions to be null and void, to require a rehearing and revote, or provide other appropriate relief for the violations.

2. The Court allowed the County’s use of harmful air pollutant levels from Dutra’s prior plant operations to reduce the calculated total emissions for the new vacant project site more than ½ mile away, as if those emissions were already present on the new, vacant site.

There are zero pollution emissions at the proposed new location. The distorted calculations made the emissions and health impacts at Dutra’s new asphalt factory appear significantly less harmful to people, wildlife and our environment.

Despite our having submitted expert testimony describing these erroneous calculations during the County’s hearings, the Court overlooked that written testimony, claiming that we hadn’t submitted any comments on this point, and that we had not ‘exhausted’ the issue administratively.

We are asking the Court to correct their error, to reverse its decision, and allow full rehearing on these issues, which were not properly decided.

3. The Court ruled that the impacts of the asphalt factory’s polluted air emissions on workers' health were adequately addressed by the County by merely citing OSHA regulations without any further analysis.

We presented testimony about the adverse and serious consequences to workers of exposures to hot asphalt’s “blue smoke” and particulates, including cancers, pulmonary and circulatory damages. The County instead claimed that simple compliance with OSHA standards would adequately mitigate impacts, and failed to calculate, analyze or address hazardous impacts to workers as required under law.

The Court further accepted the argument put forward by the County that worker health was not part of the “environment” under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Yet CEQA states that a project has significant impacts if it “will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly.”

As a result, this issue was never briefed nor heard on its merits. We are asking the Court to allow a full rehearing on these issues.

There are no benefits for the City of Petaluma to have Dutra located on the Petaluma River opposite Shollenberger Park. This highly polluting industrial factory would be at our gateway for 30-40 years.

We’d get wear and tear on our roads from 200,000+ diesel truck trips per year creating traffic delays at our southern entrance roads, with no assurances of cheaper asphalt – or the budget – to repair roads. Petaluma would get no sales tax.

There’d be only 7-10 jobs in this automated plant, and Dutra really wants to take business away from Sonoma County’s existing BoDean and Syar operators.

Since Dutra cannot use Shamrock’s river docks, their project would be served entirely by truck, and will not contribute to the Petaluma River’s commercial tonnage or likelihood of dredging.

The asphalt plant would continue to threaten the value, investment, health and popularity of Shollenberger Park, our nearby commercial businesses and residents, and the use of the Petaluma River for recreation.

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Mission Statement

We are a group of ordinary citizens who enjoy open space, clean air, and community well being. We have joined together to preserve and protect Shollenberger Park and the Petaluma Wetlands for all of our families and for future generations.

We provide information and a forum for citizens to learn about our local environmental issues and work towards protecting our park. As a “Special Project” of the O.W.L. Foundation, (http://owlfoundation.net/OWL.htm), we are a non-profit organization and donations to support our activities are tax-deductible.